Washington and Tokyo, normally the staunchest of allies, have been drawn into an unexpected diplomatic spat over the annual slaughter of dolphins in a secluded Japanese cove.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, defended the controversial cull in the town of Taiji as "lawful", swatting away criticism from the US ambassador, Caroline Kennedy.

Ms Kennedy, the only surviving child of the assassinated US President John F Kennedy, joined the chorus of global outrage this week when she said her government opposed the practice. "Deeply concerned by inhumaneness of drive hunt dolphin killing," she tweeted, as fresh images appeared online showing apparently bloodied dolphins being herded into the cove for the slaughter, which is expected to take place today.

Conservationists say a rare albino dolphin is among about 250 of the animals thrashing behind nets overnight. "Babies and mothers will be torn from each other's sides as some are taken for captivity, some are killed, and others are driven back out to sea to fend for themselves," said the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which is monitoring the cull.

The hunts are notoriously brutal. Fishermen on boats surround pods of migrating dolphins, lower metal poles into the sea and bang them to frighten the animals and disrupt their sonar. Once the dolphins are herded into the narrow cove, the fishermen attack them with knives, before dragging them to a harbour-side warehouse for slaughter. The best-looking dolphins are separated and sold to aquariums.

Ms Kennedy's message was translated into Japanese and retweeted thousands of times, prompting a backlash by nationalists who resent Western criticism of the cull. "Laughable," wrote one anonymous post to an online bulletin board. "What about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the indiscriminate bombings of Japanese cities and US killings in the Middle East?"

Traditionalists say dolphin and whale have been eaten locally for centuries. Restaurants and shops offer dolphin and whale sashimi and blubber, along with tuna and shark-fin soup. Dolphin meat sells for around £6-£10 a pound. Some local fishermen say the cull is necessary to keep dolphins from eating too many fish.

Taiji was exposed to worldwide scrutiny four years ago in the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, which followed a party of eco-activists as they battled fishermen and police to stop the cull. The documentary was attacked by Japanese ultra-rightists who threatened cinemas that showed it, and by Taiji officials who said the documentary-makers had "psychologically tortured" the fishermen.

The Cove triggered a brief, heated debate in the Japanese media, which had largely ignored the practice until then. Many activists, including the most famous - Ric O'Barry, a former dolphin trainer-turned-campaigner - predicted the global spotlight would end the tradition. "I honestly believe when the world finds out about this it will be abolished," he said.

But the annual cull of about 2,000 small porpoises and dolphins has continued. The former Guns n'Roses drummer Matt Sorum is among the latest high-profile campaigners to visit the town. "In what boats did they chase these dolphins with centuries ago?" he tweeted. "Lies... this has only been in the last 30 years... Greed not tradition."

Last year the local prefecture announced plans to build a marine mammal park where it said tourists would be able swim alongside dolphins and whales, and sample local cuisine - including whale and dolphin meat. The plans drew yet more international flak but Taiji's mayor Kazutaka Sangen was undeterred. "We are not going to change our plans for the town based on the criticism of foreigners," he said.

If anything, Taiji's growing infamy has widened the cultural gulf between the town and the rest of the world. Taiji, which has a population of about 3,000 people, has installed a 24-hour police box to deal with the steady stream of activists making their way to the cove. Locals bristle at the sight of Westerners.

Conservationists say the fishermen have already killed over 170 dolphins and small whales this year and taken 24 captive since the start of the new year. A tweet from a team of activists overlooking the cove said the animals had spent a fourth night without food and would be slaughtered today by a party of about 40 to 60 fishermen.

"I've been here for three years and this is absolutely the largest I've seen driven into the cove," Melissa Sehgal, leader of the Sea Shepherd group, told Australian media.

Ms Kennedy's intervention has again produced a flurry of stories in the Japanese media. The state broadcaster NHK said the ambassador was known as an animal lover and her comments were likely to be taken in that light. "The debate is likely to continue," it said. The message from Mr Sangen was more uncompromising. "The hunting of whales and dolphins has been carried out since long ago and is performed on scientific grounds," he told Japanese reporters last night. "I will protect this tradition."

Reader Comments

Is how I describe the Japanese. These people are a blight on the earth. The dolphins are SENTIENT beings. The lame japanese excuse of tradition is as stupid as their excuse of slaughtering whales for scientific research.

There is something very wrong in these people.

In the end, thank god for the other stupid Japanese problem...Fukushima. Eventually, that whole country will be so sick from radiation poisoning that they won't be able to physically lift a finger much less keep on slaughtering and butchering the earth's creatures.

Karma's gonna be a bitch for Amerika, too, now that Fukushima's deadly breath is here. This most arrogant nation in the world will pay, many times over, for what was done---and IS BEING done---to the first Americans. Sadly though, they'll descend into this hell along with us.

Your comment is hilarious dion. I am not reading any pearls of wisdom in your comment.

Keep eating your gmo products and remain asleep to what is truly taking place in the world. One word to summarize you...baa.

I agree bentpenny that karma is a bitch for everyone. The whole world will be impacted by the deadly output of Fukushima. It's time humanity left this planet, we have spurned the gift we were given and abused it. Fukushima will eventually be extinction.

Every nation has their karmic debts coming up due and payable. It's kind of normal to feel a reaction to the senseless slaughter of innocent creatures, especially when their habitat has been made uninhabitable by humans across the planet. It's an emotional response and did not deserve to be labeled "bigoted and simple-minded." It would be enough to point out the fact that every other country is doing similar things in varied ways.

In the end, humanity as a whole is going to face some hard lessons because if the people do not correct their rulers, the cosmos will do it for them, and Nature, in her abundance, has a tendency to produce a lot of "collateral damage".

I don't think karma quite works in that kind of John-Lennon-instant-cosmic-tit-for-tat way. Although, I guess if you were a vengeful person you'd probably like to think that it did. Perhaps the word "karma" with all it's pseudo-holy new-agey overtones should be ditched in favour of the word "results".

One thing that's interesting to me about Japanese culture is the concept of "shodo", as applied in calligraphy and swordsmanship. The idea is to unite the mind, the soul and the hand, and you get it right in one stroke. No second chances. All or nothing at all. You can see the influence of shodo in a lot of 20th century Japanese films, amazing action, amazing sets, amazing photography, simple, strong and right on the money, but on the down sids you can also see its influence on the Japs in WWII, "all or nothing at all" translated into nothing at all, and they copped two atom bombs as part of the process. Ironically, simple, strong and right on the money. The Japanese are not bad people. Culture is like an a**e-hole. Everyone's got one.